


Impact

by akire_yta



Series: prompt ficlets [383]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Gen, Injury, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-09-09 02:55:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8872957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akire_yta/pseuds/akire_yta
Summary: anon on tumblr left a message: "prompt if you wanna do it: Virgil gets hurt and it's up to the tinies to get him to safety"





	1. Chapter 1

There was no sound, no warning, no nothing.

Later, Alan will wonder what alerted him that there was even a problem; a gap in their chatter, perhaps, or maybe some strange brotherly intuition. But Alan had sensed something was wrong, wrong enough that he turned his back on the carefully choreographed evacuation to peer down the dark tunnels. 

“Virgil?” he asked, fingers resting lightly on his sash.   “Come in?”  Silence. 

Alan blinked and changed tack. “Thunderbird Five?” he hailed, switching channels.  “You heard from Virgil recently?  He’s not answering comms.”

There was barely a crackle, even this deep underground.  “He said he was doing one last sweep.”  John sounded distracted, and Alan could just picture him, seven screens running at once, coordinating the rescue.  “Hang on, I have GPS lock.  If you can’t raise him, it might be because his radio might be blocked by the mineral seam again.  He’s fifty two meters north of your position and…” Alan turned north as John refined his lock.  “Three levels down.”

Alan nodded.  “Show me en route, John.  Evacs’ pretty much done here anyway.”  He didn’t wait for John’s acknowledgement before he was pounding down the slope of the tunnel.

It was dark, and a pall of dust still hung in the air, just enough to make Alan appreciate his helmet seal.  The floating particulates bounced his search light back, whiting out dark spaces.  Alan counted his paces, double-checked the signage at every level, slowing as his mental map zeroed in on John’s last fix.

He almost walked right past it; the spill of rock looked like any other fracture, the stones tumbling out in the quake and the aftershocks that was still rattling the seams.  Only at the last moment did Alan catch a flash of colour out of the corner of his eye.

In moments, Alan was on his knees, brushing away a spray of pebbles.  Virgil’s faceplate was cracked, his eyes closed.  “John?” Alan yelled, slapping his comm.  “Come in.”

A crackle of static.  Alan hissed a word under his breath that his brothers would have yelled at him for saying, even as he released the seals on Virgil’s helmet.

The split that nearly bisected the helmet went as deep as the hardshell, and Alan knew just how much force it took to even scratch the paint on these.  This close, even in the low light, Alan could already see panda eyes forming, Virgil’s lashes still over darkening skin.  Major concussion, at the very least.  The suit vitals confirmed what Alan was seeing, a steady inhale-exhale of breathing.

But Virgil wasn’t responding, and Alan couldn’t call the cavalry. He leaned over, looking for any sign of consciousness returning.  “VIRGIL!” he yelled, so loud that a tiny spray of sand showered down on them.

Alan glanced up warily – John hadn’t finished scanning the fault, they had no idea how unstable the tunnels were, and aftershocks were still rolling through the area.

Alan’s head whipped back down to his patient at the sound of a faint groan.  “Virgil?  You in there, big guy?”  Virgil groaned again, unhappy and incoherent.  “Come on, stay with me.”  Alan’s hands were moving, releasing the pressure of the suit collar, checking down the length of Virgil’s limbs for any other injuries.  One spot on his shoulder made Virgil wince, but no bones were obviously broken.

Alan knew that, if Virgil hadn’t regained consciousness by now, that it was serious.  Dangerously serious.

Alan couldn’t leave him, but without clear comms, he couldn’t call for help either.  And there was no way Alan was dragging Virgil out by himself.

Catch-22.

Alan wished he could take his gloves off, feel Virgil’s cheek under his palm, for the reassurance if nothing else.  But Virgil was breathing, making uncomfortable noises like pain was just beyond the threshold of consciousness, and Alan had to make a decision.

He’d been in charge before, but always with someone behind him, to ratify his decision or point out some hidden flaw in his plan.  Every time he’d been in charge, there had been another way.

This was a simple problem of physics.  Virgil was bigger in every dimension, injured enough to need careful handling, and they were a long way from safety.

A part of Alan wished Virgil would wake up just to tell him what to _do_.

“Alan?”

Even to his own ears, echoing in his helmet, his gasp sounded young and scared.  But Virgil was always _there_ , looking out for his younger brothers, and now he was lying too still and too quiet on the dirt floor.  “Gordon?  Over here, quick, it’s Virgil!”

At the sound of their elder’s name, Gordon’s footsteps changed from a walk to a trot.  A second later, his torch sliced through the gloom.  “Sit rep,” Gordon snapped, and Alan gratefully yielded seniority on the scene.

Gordon was good in an emergency; that was a known fact, and Alan was never as appreciative of the fact as he was right now.  Gordon asked the questions in quick succession, fast but never curt, his answers firm but never brusque as he shifted from assessing the scene to giving the orders.

Alan didn’t need to look back, once he’d been told to run for help, to know that Gordon was kneeling by their brother’s prone form, keeping him safe.

So Alan just ran.

Many hands made light work, some of the rescued turning to return the favour, pulling out small dumpers and crew cars, the backboard retrieved from TB2 balancing securely across the seats to ferry Virgil back up to the sunlight without aggravating his injuries.  The ambulance was already waiting, the local hospital too small to take a Thunderbird.

Alan knew he should be projecting confidence, calm, in front of the miners.  But he couldn’t stop himself from shifting from foot to foot as he watched Scott leaning over the gurney to talk to the attending paramedic as the ambulance doors closed.

“He’ll be okay, won’t he?” Alan asked quietly to the shadow at his side.

He heard Gordon’s deep breath.  “Yeah, he’s got a hard head.”  There was a noise, and Alan glanced over, his eyes widening as he caught sight of Virgil’s cracked helmet dangling limply from Gordon’s fingers.  “And this took the worst of it at least.  Come on,” he added, nudging Alan gently.  “Least we can do is tuck his Bird up back safe at home.”

It felt wrong to be sitting in the jump seat without Virgil.  Next to him, Gordon fidgeted for a long time, adjusting the seat, trying to find the right setting.  “Long legged bastard,” Gordon muttered under his breath.  “Okay, ready?”

“No.” Alan said honestly.

There was a pause.  “Yeah,” Gordon breathed, heartfelt and honest.  TB2′s engines roared into life without another word.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon asked: any chance of a sequel to the one about Virgil getting hurt, maybe from Scott’s pov?

Scott had learned more about extradural hematoma in the last twenty minutes than he ever wanted to in his life.

The hospital staff were confused by the matching uniforms and the family connection, but the IR logo was hard currency in emergency circles, and once the doctors had realized that Scott’s medical and first responder training was good enough to keep up, they had delivered the news straight, no softening their hits.

Virgil had taken a hard blow.  There was bleeding, between the brain and the skull, clearly visible on the CT scans they had brought up onto the screen.  And the only treatment was to, essentially, drill a hole in Virgil’s skull.  Once the pressure released, they would have time to consider their next steps.

Scott was next of kin.  He’d given permission, walked with Virgil’s gurney to the door, and watched him disappear into surgery.  He’d stood at the door for a long time before turning to make all the calls he needed to make – Kayo was bringing Grandma out in Thunderbird Shadow, and Alan and Gordon were waiting for John to descend before they too would be inbound.  They’d probably all arrive before Virgil returned from surgery anyway.

As of now, International Rescue was on emergency downtime.  Colonel Casey had taken the news stoically but her best wishes for Virgil were understatedly heartfelt.

The moulded plastic chair of the waiting room was hard, pressing into him at uncomfortable angles, and Scott shifted on his seat.  He knew he should be planning, making preparations and contingencies, but now that the essentials had been dealt with, all he seemed capable of was waiting for news, stuck in a holding pattern.

That was his little brother on the operating table. He’d gotten hurt on Scott’s watch. 

Virgil was hurt.

“Excuse me?”

Scott looked up blankly, his eyes flickering for a moment until the figure in stained miner’s coveralls resolved into focus.  “Yes?”

“Drink this, it’ll help.”  The miner pushed a mug into Scott’s hands.  Tea, his nose told him, thick and sweet.  “We heard about your brother,” the figure continued. “He helped get C-team out, seemed like a good bloke, so we thought, if it’s alright but you, that we’d come sit wait.”

Only then did Scott comprehend the dozen men standing behind the first, helmets in hands or tucked under arms.  “Nothing else for us to do,” one said.

“You shouldn’t be alone now, anyway,” another added.

“Mates look out for mates,” said a third.

Scott felt his world rock and steady.  “I…I’d appreciate that. Thank you.”

One by one, with a pat on the shoulder or a shake of his hand, the mining crew settled in for the vigil, to wait until their rescuer was rescued.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prelude asked: well, now you gotta round off that virgil series with a gordon pov and a john pov. flip a coin. take yer pick. (do both) 
> 
> and since Gordon got to do things in part one, I went with John

From decision to touch-down, the space elevator took eighteen minutes.

The entire process was automated; there wasn’t even a control console.  John sat, the restraints loose and his leg folded under him, ignoring the changing colours of the atmosphere outside the window.  His eyes were locked on the recordings of the rescue, and John scrolled rapidly through the reams of data, suit telemetry and audio recordings, the log of orders given and people saved.

“May I be of assistance?”  Eos’ camera ran on a ring around the elevator’s pod, and she rolled smoothly from side to side, describing an arc from John’s ten to two, almost like she was pacing.

“I’m trying to find what I missed,” he ground out, scrubbing quickly through the audio once more.  Snippets of his brothers voices filled the cabin, and were suddenly silenced.

John rocked back in his seat like he’d been struck.

“Enough,” Eos ordered, calm and firm.  “I have analysed the data.  There were no missed calls for help or sounds of distress on any available communications frequency.  No sensors detected any seismic event of relevance.  Available suit telemetry did not raise any alerts.”  The ring of lights around her lens changed and flashed on each word.  “You didn’t miss anything.  It’s not your fault John.”

“Then whose is it?” John snapped, too loud and too emotional for the space.

Eos’ lights turned clear, pure white.  “No-one is at fault.  It just happened.  You can’t control everything, John.”

John tipped his head back, staring sightlessly out the porthole and up the length of the cable.  “Then what am I good for?”

Her servos whined softly as she slowly started another orbit around the cabin.  “Right now, your brothers need you.”  A pause, filled only with the sounds of the space elevator.  “And I think you need them.”

John nodded slowly and closed his eyes.

He only opened them as he felt the pod dock on the platform.  He was out the door before the hatch was fully open, almost skidding down the endless flight of steps onto the flight deck.  Gordon was waiting by the ramp up into Two, a bag in his hands.  “Get on, I packed up your shit, Alan’s doing pre-flight, we’re ready to roll.”

John reached for the bag and grabbed Gordon too, wrapping him into a hug.  Gordon squeezed him tightly for a moment then stepped back.  “Unexpected but not unwanted,” he said, voice thick and eyes red, but his hands were steady.  “He should be out of surgery in the next twenty minutes, so let’s go.”

Not trusting his voice, John followed his brother aboard and sealed the hatch behind him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked  
> Hey, so I'm reading literally all of your works on AO3 and came across a TAG prompt you did wayyy back in January about Virgil getting hurt (It's called impact) and I'm sorry but I have to request it.... Virgil recovering pretty please?? xx

Virgil drifted around the Island like a solution looking for a problem.

John had volunteered to work dispatch from the Island station, with Eos feeding him what he needed from Five, and the fact that John volunteered to  _not_ go to space told Virgil all he needed to know about how worried they all were.

The others, when they weren’t out on calls without him, were hovering at a wary distance now. Virgil had tried, several times, to apologize to grandma for snapping at her like he had, but she’d just patted his arm and kissed his temple, right at the edge of the white gauze he still wore to hide the ugly, healing surgical scar.  “It’s okay, kiddo.  No harm done.”

He couldn’t even remember  _why_ he’d yelled at her.  He couldn’t remember a lot of things, these days.

Including, right now, where he’d left his mug.  He drifted up from the kitchen, smiling awkwardly in response to the wave John threw him even as he kept talking in calm, authoritative tones to the rescuee at the other end of the line.

Forgetting his mug, Virgil settled in on the sofa and watched John do his thing.  He, at least, could still work; the doctors were clear that Virgil and large machinery would not mix for at least a few months more, and Two was the definition of heavy metal.

It was kind of hypnotic, watching John’s hands fly as he gathered and parsed information almost as fast as Virgil’s eyes could track.

He had only got up a few hours ago and he was already so very tired.

The cushions were soft as he curled up on his side.  The dark holocomm in the middle of the circle was dark with John down here, and it blocked Virgil’s view.  He let his eyes drift close, John’s voice turning to white noise as he drifted off to sleep.


End file.
